Cellular communication devices use various network radio access technologies to communicate wirelessly with geographically distributed base stations. Long-Term Evolution (LTE) is an example of a widely implemented radio access technology, which is used within 4th-Generation (4G) communication systems. New Radio (NR) is a newer radio access technology that is used in 5th-Generation (5G) communication systems. Standards for LTE and NR radio access technologies have been developed by the 3rd-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for use by wireless communication carriers within cellular communication networks. Note that the terms 4G and LTE are often used interchangeably when referencing 4G systems. In addition, the terms 5G and NR are often used interchangeably when referencing 5G systems.
A configuration defined by the 3GPP in the 5G/NR specification, referred to as Non-Standalone (NSA), allows the simultaneous use of LTE and 5G systems for communications with a communication device. Specifically, NSA uses Dual Connectivity (DC), in which a user equipment (UE) uses both an LTE radio and an NR radio for downlink receptions and uplink transmissions to corresponding LTE and 5G base stations. An LTE carrier is used for control-plane signaling and for user-plane communications. A 5G carrier is used for additional user-plane bandwidth as well as for data download or transmission throughput. In a scenario such as this, the LTE carrier is said to “anchor” the communication session.
Existing LTE networks use relatively low radio frequencies, such as frequencies in bands below 5 GHz. 5G networks are able to use an extended range of frequency bands compared to LTE, such as higher frequency bands in the 30-300 GHz spectrum. Frequency bands in the 30-300 GHz spectrum are generally referred as mmWave frequency bands as their wavelength (2) is within the millimeter range (1 mm≤×<10 mm) Radio communications using the higher frequency 5G bands can support higher data speeds, but also have disadvantages compared to the lower frequency LTE bands. Specifically, radio signals in the higher frequencies have shorter range and are more easily blocked by physical objects. Accordingly, the ability for a communication device to communicate using higher-frequency 5G bands may be sporadic as the device is physically moved.
Communication devices such as smartphones often have a status bar that shows, among other things, the current signal strength and/or signal quality of the current wireless connection with a base station. In addition, the status bar may have a network indicator, such as an icon or symbol, that indicates the network type being used for the current wireless connection. For example, the network indicator might comprise an “4G LTE” symbol when the current connection is over an LTE network, and a 5G symbol when the current connection is over a 5G network.